


lake andromache

by firefliesandstarlight



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: M/M, Major Found Family Vibes, Minor Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Post-Canon, aight i think thats it, but there is a lot of mention of death so tw death, first work for tog so lmk what u think! comments/kudos appreciated, i have no idea what else to tag this uh, i promise i'll write one thats not this uh angsty at some point, technically the major character death thing doesnt actually happen in the story, they deserve peace and happiness and u cannot change my mind, they just have a relaxing day remembering Old Times okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:14:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26236246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firefliesandstarlight/pseuds/firefliesandstarlight
Summary: when andy dies, nobody knows what to do.she’s had years, decades, even, to grow old with her team, herfamily, though they did not grow old alongside her. not physically.over six thousand years is a pretty good run, though. andy lived well, and died as she lived.or: a quick fic abt the team remembering andy after she's gone
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, theyre not really the focus but i figured i should tag them anyway
Comments: 4
Kudos: 40





	lake andromache

When Andy dies, nobody knows what to do. 

She's had years, decades, even, to grow old with her team, her family, though they did not grow old alongside her. Not physically.

She was good old Andy up until the very end. And she lasted longer than anyone thought she would’ve—100 years, just long enough to see her family reunite once more. 

It wasn’t all peaches and rainbows, of course. They had a few tough battles, and there were a few injuries Andy insisted were scratches that Joe swore under his breath when he saw and even Nile, with her basic medical training, knew were going to be hard to come back from. 

But Andy did it. 

Of course she did. 

She was Andy. 

Nobody is quite sure how she died, actually. They realize it as they stand around a lake, secluded and picturesque, calm but not calm to the point of suspicion. Andy chose it. For multiple reasons, really, but mostly because it was far enough north and deep enough inside the mountains that nobody but her team could get to it. 

They’d scattered her ashes a year ago to the day. “Bodies are strings,” Andy had said, when her step was slowing and nobody but she could admit what was going to happen. “There’s no way I'm letting you all get tangled in mine”. 

She had a point, to be fair. After the Merrick disaster and their deal with Copley (Copley, who had kept up his end of the deal until he couldn’t type on a computer any more; they had forgiven him long ago,) they hadn’t dared leave any footprints in their wake. 

Not even gravestones. 

They’d gone on a brief mission, a month or so after Andy left. Nothing complicated. Meant to be long-term, relatively speaking. For them it was the blink of an eye. 

The mission was to infiltrate a few government facilities, weasel their way onto a few committees, start a couple petitions. Ultimately, it was successful; took them twice as long as they thought it would, but it worked. 

There’s a secluded lake, picturesque, calm but not calm to the point of suspicion. It’s tucked away in a mountain range, inaccessible unless you’ve been thirty for a thousand years. Before, it wasn’t named anything, really. Nobody cared for it enough to tie it down. 

But after Andy's family is done, after the mission is over and they hike through a mountain range carrying nothing but basic supplies and a cooler full of baklava and champagne, the lake has changed. 

There is an axe, a hundred million thousand and a half years old (that’s what Andy would say, if Nile pestered her for her age and she was in a good mood), sunken at the bottom of the lake. A little colony of fish has made it their home, now that weeds have tangled around it and turned it from weapon to shelter. The axe is there as a tombstone, and as a reminder. 

And because, if Andy were alive, she’d laugh her ass off if some explorers found her old axe and reshaped the area’s history around an old displaced relic used, up until a year ago, by the original owner. 

But in this moment, at this time, all that matters is that the lake in the mountains has four visitors. 

They are sitting on a blanket, bought from some merchant at some stall in some country in 1811, drinking champagne from red cups and eating baklava and doing their best to remember and not to cry. 

“Remember Budapest, 1944?” Nicky says, leaning his head on Joe's shoulder and staring out over the lake. 

“How could I forget?” Joe says fondly, at the same time Booker laughs and tosses back an entire glass of champagne at once. 

“God, those years were chaotic.” 

“That’s one word for it.” 

“I feel like I’ve heard all the Budapest stories before,” Nile says, unwrapping another little square of baklava. 

“You have,” Joe and Nicky say together. They start telling the story anyway, Nicky filling in for Joe when he needs to take a break, and vice versa. 

They stay there, next to the lake, eating and drinking and remembering, for a while. The sun has set and the sky painted over orange and yellow by the time they stand and fold up the blanket and pack up the empty bottles and cups and wrappers and walk away. 

Nobody knows what to do after Andy dies, but they leave Lake Andromache behind them with the promise to return again the next year, and the year after that, with baklava and champagne and memories. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> ty for reading! this is my first fic for tog, so comments + kudos are much appreciated <3  
>  ~~and hopefully i'll expand my tog fics to a couple less angsty ones soon lol~~


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